Spartan Controls key contributor to new wastewater research facility

03 19, 2015
Spartan Controls

University researchers have teamed up with the City of Calgary to form Advancing Canadian Wastewater Assets (ACWA) which launched a research facility embedded within the City’s Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment centre on Tuesday. With technology from Spartan Controls, Emerson Process Management’s local business partner in Western Canada, the experimental wastewater treatment plant will be used by university researchers to develop and test methods to remove contaminants from our wastewater.

Emerson’s industry-leading distributed control system, DeltaV, which utilizes Electronic Marshalling, has been installed in the Pine Creek Wastewater Plant’s chief operating room. Electronic Marshalling offers maximum choice and flexibility for performing an automation system’s most basic task: getting field information into the control room so that good decisions can be made. This technology will allow University of Calgary researchers to monitor and control each of the experimental processes within the research plant. Using a wireless tablet, DeltaV can provide operators with the ability to see the facilities’ processes live as they walk around different plant areas.

“We are extremely proud to be supporting this unique, world class research facility right here in our own backyard,” said Barry Blight, General Manager of Process Systems at Spartan Controls. “The DeltaV technology installed at ACWA is the same system operating other City of Calgary water and wastewater facilities which reduces the City’s overall costs for training and support.”

Throughout the construction of the facility, Spartan worked in conjunction with ACWA to ensure its success and was involved in:

Project management

Administration

Configuration

Internal testing

Software and hardware testing

Commissioning and start-up

On-site training of operators on the DeltaV system

ACWA’s goal is to advance wastewater treatment technologies to address environmental and human health issues. The new plant could treat the flows from a town of 5,000 people and contains equipment that uses membrane technology to filter our harmful substances and UV light, combined with ozone or hydrogen peroxide to ‘seek and destroy’ tiny unwanted contaminants.

The final effluent from this plant can be directed to research streams to test the impact of various treatment methods on aquatic life under controlled conditions, and in comparison to water from the Bow River or Pine Creek’s final effluent, which is today’s gold standard for wastewater.